Both Front Row and Rosetta are quite unnecessary. Nice to see Apple cleaning up and moving forward.

Unnecessary for you, perhaps. But how would it hurt you if Rosetta were still available to those of us who want it? It wouldn't change your system - you'd never install it. But I'd like Rosetta so I could continue to use Office 2004 - I can't stomach the newer versions. And as several people have pointed out, many older printers and scanners still work perfectly fine, but their drivers have never been updated past the PPC versions.

I hope Apple will continue to make Rosetta available, or at least allow it to work if we can figure out how to load it into Lion (I'm not sure where it resides in my computer). I can still load iMovie HD into Snow Leopard, and it works, even though it's not available through Apple anymore. Come to think of it, I'm also using iTunes 8.2 in my new Snow Leopard computer. That one was a little tricky - once your music files have been loaded into itunes 9 or 10, it's a pain to go back.

I don't know - I guess I'm a sucker for older software that works better for me than the newer versions (even if they have less features).

Dropping Rosetta is premature. Logic 8 for example needs Rosetta for the installer, even though it's a Universal Binary app. Quicken 2007 still hasn't been upgraded and my scanner software needs Rosetta.

This smells like Apple's "Vista" moment.

Logic 8 Released in 2007. Logic 9 released in mid-2009 have a PPC installer?

Quicken 2007 *Has since been replaced by Quicken 2008, 2009 and 2010. The Quicken site does recommend that you use that version to track investment buys and sells, export to TurboTax, or to pay bills, but thats Inuits fault, not Apples.

Scanner The last time I needed a scanner it was connected via a parallel cable and I was testing out a v.92 modem while reducing a potential blowout before my prom date with Sally in case it went well.

I really dont see this as being a Vista moment. Id say this will be less of an issue to users than the transition of Vista to 7, but thats just from the shear number of Windows users and the lack of control of the HW in play.

Dick Applebaum on whether the iPad is a personal computer: "BTW, I am posting this from my iPad pc while sitting on the throne... personal enough for you?"

My group develops cutting edge (server side) enterprise java applications. I could not do this nearly as efficiently without a Mac. I could not do this at all without Java on my Mac. My organization has a good dozen developers running $3,000 Macs because they are the perfect platform to for this high end enterprise development. 5 years ago, all those developers were running Solaris boxes. BECAUSE Apple's Java support has improved so much over the years, we were able to switch.

Well, they did for 10.6. IMO QTX should have never seen the light of day until it was a suitable replacement for QT7 and they've given no indication that it will be.

I am sure weve been over this a few times. You appear to be operating under the premise that QTX is suppose to be a replacement for all the things that QT7 can do. I think we can say without a shadow of a doubt that Apple redesigned QTX to not be what QT7 was. Im surprised it got any trimming capabilities at all.

Personally, the one feature I want QTX to have is the ability to remember the placement of an opened file, like in DVD player or Movist (though Movist only remembers the latest file played).

Dick Applebaum on whether the iPad is a personal computer: "BTW, I am posting this from my iPad pc while sitting on the throne... personal enough for you?"

Is it just me, or do those new GUI controls (buttons, sliders, etc.) look cartoony and cheap?

It reminds me of those cheap Linux UI themes that tried to duplicate the Aqua look without copying it pixel for pixel.

You can't do better than Aqua. If they want to replace Aqua they're going to have to come up with something completely new and equally as refined. Just tweaking Aqua for sake of tweaking it will always look bad.

Logic 8 — Released in 2007. Logic 9 released in mid-2009 have a PPC installer?

Logic Studio 8 requires Rosetta to install. I don't know why, but I found this out when I got my new MBP and had to reinstall it. Its a $500 piece of software, not something you upgrade lightly.

Quote:

Quicken 2007 —*Has since been replaced by Quicken 2008, 2009 and 2010. The Quicken site does recommend that you use that version to track investment buys and sells, export to TurboTax, or to pay bills, but that’s Inuit’s fault, not Apple’s.

I'm sure you're aware that Quicken 2008, 2009 and 2010 don't exist for the Mac. There is Quicken Essentials, which is a baby version of Quicken and most people hate it. But yes, you're right that it's Intuit's doing, not Apple's.

Quote:

Scanner — The last time I needed a scanner it was connected via a parallel cable and I was testing out a v.92 modem while reducing a potential blowout before my prom date with Sally in case it went well.

That's great for you - my wife is a journalist and often scans magazines she has done editorials or writing for. We could get a new scanner, but that's hardly the point.

Quote:

I really don’t see this as being a “Vista moment.” I’d say this will be less of an issue to users than the transition of Vista to 7, but that’s just from the shear number of Windows users and the lack of control of the HW in play.

I'm honestly not sure - many people who use Macs are professionals who do more with their machines than pose in Starbucks, or ridicule people on forums like this for being worried. Professionals tend to have older gear, because they actually use it, rather than just 'have' it.

I am sure we’ve been over this a few times. You appear to be operating under the premise that QTX is suppose to be a replacement for all the things that QT7 can do. I think we can say without a shadow of a doubt that Apple redesigned QTX to not be what QT7 was. I’m surprised it got any trimming capabilities at all.

Surely having two apps called Quicktime for different tasks is not the solution. This has been done with iMovie and it's not a good setup because you end up jumping between very similar apps and it's annoying having the defaults open files in the wrong one.

QT Pro has things that aren't useful too like masking and even filters. Useful features include scaling, cropping, audio replacement, marking in/out points, cutting/pasting, trimming to selection, frame numbering/timecodes, import/export image sequences and export to multiple formats including pictures (not PICTs though). I think those can and should go in QTX.

I'm sure you're aware that Quicken 2008, 2009 and 2010 don't exist for the Mac. There is Quicken Essentials, which is a baby version of Quicken and most people hate it. But yes, you're right that it's Intuit's doing, not Apples.

Yeah, I wasnt aware of that. My query was a genuine query. Its been since 2007 and Mac OS X has been steadily increasing in sales since then so I would imagine that Inuit has been working on a new Mac version for some time and that this Lion release will be the push they finally need to get it out the door in 2011. For your sake I hope thats the case.

Quote:

That's great for you - my wife is a journalist and often scans magazines she has done editorials or writing for. We could get a new scanner, but that's hardly the point.

I know there are plenty of uses for scanning images these days. Faxing papers, too. Anytime I allude to masturbation I am attempting to be comical.

Still, Id bet that so few would be hindered by the lack of scanner support to make this a Vista moment. MS also had a "64-bit moment" of their OS which simply didnt affect Macs in a major way even though some surely were affected.

Dick Applebaum on whether the iPad is a personal computer: "BTW, I am posting this from my iPad pc while sitting on the throne... personal enough for you?"

Surely having two apps called Quicktime for different tasks is not the solution. This has been done with iMovie and it's not a good setup because you end up jumping between very similar apps and it's annoying having the defaults open files in the wrong one.

QT Pro has things that aren't useful too like masking and even filters. Useful features include scaling, cropping, audio replacement, marking in/out points, cutting/pasting, trimming to selection, frame numbering/timecodes, import/export image sequences and export to multiple formats including pictures (not PICTs though). I think those can and should go in QTX.

Im not arguing that as our desire for more Pro functionality in QuickTime X is clear, but I do think we need to look at it from Apples perspective. I think they have no intention of making it feel Pro in any way, shape or form, even if it hidden features.

This does give some savvy devs a chance to make an app to sell on the Mac App Store. We both have a pretty good idea what would make a simple and powerful quick editor, but I couldnt code myself out of a_paper_bag.com if 10' people to help me.

As for iMovie I dont think Apple had any intention of re-releasing that previous version until too many people complained about the excessive change with some missing features. Its a tool designed for editing so there are some differences. I think QT& being including as a separate install probably suffered a similar fate after developer/tester complaints of SL.

Dick Applebaum on whether the iPad is a personal computer: "BTW, I am posting this from my iPad pc while sitting on the throne... personal enough for you?"

The last PPC Mac was sold in Fall of 2006. By the time Lion actually comes out, those machines will be nearly 5 years old. Support for machines older than that is typically dropped by Apple in that timeframe. The CDs and possibly early C2Ds will also be dropped. Typical.

All of this is inevitable. We complain about it all the time. We want our machines to last forever, but they don't and they can't.

What all of this really shows is how nice it would be if Apple just implemented some kind of virtual operating system box to run previous versions of OSX when a machine originally supported it. It should be simple. Allow SL to run inside Lion to run Rosetta apps or anything else Lion no longer supports. It would work for Tiger or Leopard, too.

For you guys with scanners, there's VueScan. This has been around forever. It supports just about every scanner ever made. It's in 32 and 64 bits, has versions for Linux, Max OS and Windows, and is available for PPC, and Intel for Mac.

No Rosetta? There are still a good number of great PowerPC games I still like to play. Starcraft chief among them. With Starcraft II in the wild, I don't know how much motivation Blizzard would have to make a UB for the original Starcraft.

Damned, I agree 100% with you. And Diablo 2 works just fine too, I happen to have done a Necromancer a few weeks ago... I hope we still get a way to run those apps...

Social Capitalist, dreamer and wise enough to know I'm never going to grow up anyway... so not trying anymore.

Front Row - I hope there is a better system-wide entertainment mode in development. Gosh knows, I loathe hitting Cmd-Escape and bringing up Front Row when I'm trying to hit Cmd-Tilde during a frantic work session, but there have been a few times when I'm not working and I want to use my Mac's huge screen as an entertainment center.

Java - Eliminating the special hooks in Mac OS X for Java is a VERY good thing. I know that it's going to hurt, but ultimately it's good for everyone. Java development needs to be driven by Oracle rather than Apple. And Apple benefits from better security by not having Java integrated at such a low level in the OS. Pain will ensue in this transition, but it's for the best.

Rosetta - I can see why they're dropping it; they could probably make PowerPC only apps continue to work, but the apps would be oblivious to all the new Lion functionality. That's probably worse to Apple than the development effort to get Rosetta working on Lion. Alas, I'll say goodbye to a lot of apps that I know won't be updated e.g. LineForm, old web browsers I use for testing, and most of the software than came with my printers. I understand the reasons, but this is the one that will hurt the most.

The last PPC Mac was sold in Fall of 2006. By the time Lion actually comes out, those machines will be nearly 5 years old. Support for machines older than that is typically dropped by Apple in that timeframe.

In all fairness, the complaints are from the apps that still only support PPC, not the Macs that support PPCs. While this does shorten the window for an acceptable timeframe I do think that any apps still not compiled to at least be Universal are not Apple’s fault or responsibility. Maybe those with PPC apps can look for alternatives or write the app makers, assuming the companies are still in business.

Quote:

The CDs and possibly early C2Ds will also be dropped. Typical.

From what I read Lion will not support any 32-bit "Yonah” C2D processors. This is completely expected. What I haven’t been able to get a clarification on is if Lion supports the Macs that were 64-bit architecture, but still had the 32-bit system memory addressing “Merom” processors. IIRC C2D wasn’t full on 64-bit until “Penryn”.

PS: It’s been fun. See you all in a month or two or three. Later!

Dick Applebaum on whether the iPad is a personal computer: "BTW, I am posting this from my iPad pc while sitting on the throne... personal enough for you?"

In all fairness, the complaints are from the apps that still only support PPC, not the Macs that support PPCs. While this does shorten the window for an acceptable timeframe I do think that any apps still not compiled to at least be Universal are not Apples fault or responsibility. Maybe those with PPC apps can look for alternatives or write the app makers, assuming the companies are still in business.

Huh! I just asked my PPC apps, and they're not complaining. I guess I've prepared them well for this day.

is going to hurt. Even with all the new graphics apps, there is still nothing out there to replace Canvas and I still use it regularly.

For me personally it's Quicken 2007. Quicken Essentials, while Intel, sucks so bad I can't bring myself to launch it anymore. And the various other money management programs out there aren't much better. Maybe I'm just used to Q2007 as I have customized reports that have become second nature to me. But I suppose I could just run the Windows version under Parallels 6. That will cost me some serious money as I would have to obtain a legal copy of full Windows.

Rosetta doesn't take up much space. I wonder why they can't just keep it available.

For me personally it's Quicken 2007. Quicken Essentials, while Intel, sucks so bad I can't bring myself to launch it anymore. And the various other money management programs out there aren't much better. Maybe I'm just used to Q2007 as I have customized reports that have become second nature to me. But I suppose I could just run the Windows version under Parallels 6. That will cost me some serious money as I would have to obtain a legal copy of full Windows.

Rosetta doesn't take up much space. I wonder why they can't just keep it available.

I suppose some newer versions of some programs are worse than older ones, but it's certainly not generally true.

Canvas, mentioned by Gary5, happens to be available in versions that work on Intel machines, and they're pretty good.

Sometimes, people just have to bite the bullet, and spend the money to upgrade.

I only have two programs I still use running in PowerPC mode: Quicken 2004 and Office 2004. Quicken 2004 is nice because I have ready access to 7 years of personal finances without converting data. Office 2004 is great because it was the last non-ribbon version of Office. Everything MS produced after Office 2004 was riddled with that crappy ribbon interface that took up way too much of my display.

Now with Lion these two programs must hit the road. Since most reviews panned Quicken Essentials for Mac, let's hope Intuit releases a good Quicken Mac version before Lion. I mean when the head of your company is sitting on Apple's Board of Directors you think the company (Intuit) would do a better job for Mac users.

Office is another problem. Nothing I would rather do than dump Office. But I manage a law office where we use Office 2004. Since lawyers are not the easiest people to change, a conversion to Pages may be difficult. However, it will be Pages or Office for Mac 2011. Both are a huge change for existing users of Office 2004. I have my fingers crossed that Pages will be more attractive for my legal associates.

I was about to post that Ill have to keep a Snow Leopard machine around to play a few of my favorite older games.... but Im looking at them all and to my surprise theyre all Intel-native or have been patched to become so:

I only have two programs I still use running in PowerPC mode: Quicken 2004 and Office 2004. Quicken 2004 is nice because I have ready access to 7 years of personal finances without converting data. Office 2004 is great because it was the last non-ribbon version of Office. Everything MS produced after Office 2004 was riddled with that crappy ribbon interface that took up way too much of my display.

Now with Lion these two programs must hit the road. Since most reviews panned Quicken Essentials for Mac, let's hope Intuit releases a good Quicken Mac version before Lion. I mean when the head of your company is sitting on Apple's Board of Directors you think the company (Intuit) would do a better job for Mac users.

Office is another problem. Nothing I would rather do than dump Office. But I manage a law office where we use Office 2004. Since lawyers are not the easiest people to change, a conversion to Pages may be difficult. However, it will be Pages or Office for Mac 2011. Both are a huge change for existing users of Office 2004. I have my fingers crossed that Pages will be more attractive for my legal associates.

It's often difficult to move to something new. But one of the good things about Apple is that they drop backwards compatibility after a time. People should know that this will be happening, and prepare for it. MS has problems with Windows that are related to their fear of dropping this compatibility.

In order to move forward, we have to stop looking back. With computers, I always assume that sometime, something will be dropped. I live with it.

MS attempted to come out with Longhorn, with a number of new and more advanced technologies. One of the reasons it failed was because they couldn't do it without dropping some of that compatibility.

As for Rosetta, unfortunately that means no Lion upgrade for me. At least not anytime soon. That $129 OS upgrade would result in costing me about $500 in new software. And one piece, Quicken, even though it's several years old, is still better than any of the alternatives out there, including the current version of Quicken.

It's often difficult to move to something new. But one of the good things about Apple is that they drop backwards compatibility after a time. People should know that this will be happening, and prepare for it. MS has problems with Windows that are related to their fear of dropping this compatibility.

In order to move forward, we have to stop looking back. With computers, I always assume that sometime, something will be dropped. I live with it.

MS attempted to come out with Longhorn, with a number of new and more advanced technologies. One of the reasons it failed was because they couldn't do it without dropping some of that compatibility.

Sometimes, we just gotta let go.

True, but sometimes it seems Apple does it purely out of spite. Was Rosetta in the previous builds of Lion? Was it working? Are there new changes to the Lion OS that makes it somehow inherently incompatible?

Apple make Rosetta so seamless that it's likely there are many people who don't know they are even using it. Java can be installed on your own. FrontRow nobody really used. I think ditching Rosetta is going to be a headache for Apple and their customers.

The last PPC Mac was sold in Fall of 2006. By the time Lion actually comes out, those machines will be nearly 5 years old. Support for machines older than that is typically dropped by Apple in that timeframe. The CDs and possibly early C2Ds will also be dropped. Typical.

All of this is inevitable. We complain about it all the time. We want our machines to last forever, but they don't and they can't.

What all of this really shows is how nice it would be if Apple just implemented some kind of virtual operating system box to run previous versions of OSX when a machine originally supported it. It should be simple. Allow SL to run inside Lion to run Rosetta apps or anything else Lion no longer supports. It would work for Tiger or Leopard, too.

Sure, that's when the last PPC hardware was sold. But when was the last PPC software was sold? When did Apple finally update all it's software to not use any PPC code? When was Office, and Quicken moved to Intel. There was a LOT of PPC software, including Apple's own, that was sold after the last PPC Mac was sold.

We are not talking about supporting the hardware. Who cares if Aperture 3 can run on a PPC Mac. We are talking about supporting the software that was sold not all that long ago. The one great thing about Macs, and I've been using them since 1987, is that even as the hardware faded into the past, the software kept working. I had software from 1989 that still ran fine and was fully functional running under Classic on OX up until Classic was abandoned only a couple of years ago. It worked for nearly 2 decades!

If Rosetta doesn't have some inherent incompatibility with Lion, it shouldn't be abandoned yet.

But on the positive for Apple, if they stick with this decision, it means I'll likely be purchasing a new laptop sooner than planned so I can ensure to have a machine that will run Snow Leopard.

You lost a lot of Mac credibility points with that bonehead remark. Quicken 2007 was the last Mac version before the steaming pile of crap they call Quicken Essentials. You are right, that's not Apple's fault. But Apple should have an interest in making sure their customers are taken care of. They can't seem to get the Quicken CEO, who freakin' sits on Apple's board, to get off his ass and make a decent piece of software for Macs.

For Snow Leopoard being touted as "all intel binaries," you'd be surprised to realize how much junk ppc code Apple left in Snow Leopoard... many many many of the binaries are still fat for some reason. Even though this doesn't affect performance, they serve no purpose being there and take up space, so I hope they trimmed the fat in Lion.

Well, those of us who use Quicken 2006 or 2007 are in for a world of hurt. Those are the last "complete" versions of quicken available to us. Quicken essentials is a joke. 2006/2007 requires rosetta, and for some reason (laziness?) Quicken doesn't seem to be in much hurry to do a proper update.

I hope they don't drop Front Row. Sure, there are some minor issues with it, but we still use it extensively in our household to connect to our centralized media server and play video content. The iPad and iPhone can't do that (AirPlay is only half an implementation as far as I'm concerned).

The playroom/exercise room has an iMac where we use Front Row all the time, and we have an old MacBook Pro that floats around the house where it's needed. I pop open my MBP to use as a Front Row device while working on the Mac Mini in the den. And, every once in a while we fire up a projector in the backyard for the neighborhood kids -- having to search through file shares for a particular movie seems like a pain in the butt when we could just use Front Row.

is going to hurt. Even with all the new graphics apps, there is still nothing out there to replace Canvas and I still use it regularly.

Agreed! I pay my Adobe tax and have most of their stuff (Master Collection) but I can get work done FAST in Canvas, even with all its quirks and bugs. Hopefully, if enough of us make enough noise, ACDSee will change their mind and build Mac versions of this program again...

Excuse me? Yes, few of the "cool" Mac apps are, but there are TONS of Java desktop apps, although (obviously) usually ones intended to be cross-platform. At the moment I'm using the Cisco VPN client (required to connect to my corporate LAN from off-campus), JGnash (personal finance manager), and the database component and other portions of Open/LibreOffice that depend on it. I think the VirtualBox GUI does, too, unless they switched to Qt, and those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head. This is Java, we're talking about, not apps that depend on something truly obscure, like the Visual Basic 3.0 runtime.

In any case, it's a good thing there's a planned and easy solution for this problem--it's probably how it should have been done all along, similar to every other platform (you can tell that Apple hasn't cared much about their JVM since 10.4).

I only have two programs I still use running in PowerPC mode: Quicken 2004 and Office 2004. Quicken 2004 is nice because I have ready access to 7 years of personal finances without converting data. Office 2004 is great because it was the last non-ribbon version of Office. Everything MS produced after Office 2004 was riddled with that crappy ribbon interface that took up way too much of my display.

Now with Lion these two programs must hit the road. Since most reviews panned Quicken Essentials for Mac, let's hope Intuit releases a good Quicken Mac version before Lion. I mean when the head of your company is sitting on Apple's Board of Directors you think the company (Intuit) would do a better job for Mac users.

Office is another problem. Nothing I would rather do than dump Office. But I manage a law office where we use Office 2004. Since lawyers are not the easiest people to change, a conversion to Pages may be difficult. However, it will be Pages or Office for Mac 2011. Both are a huge change for existing users of Office 2004. I have my fingers crossed that Pages will be more attractive for my legal associates.

Well, pages is certainly cheaper than Office 2011 but Office 2011 does give you the option to hide the ribbon and work the 'old' way. Personally, I like the ribbon now that I've learned to use it. YMMV

I understand that for most applications there are versions available that do not require Rosetta, but many of us have reasons (or at least preferences) for wanting to use older versions of applications. However, there are some cases where you need to maintain at least periodic access to old applications. One example would be TurboTax 2005 and earlier. I may not need it very often, but I would like to have some way to continue using it if I upgrade to Lion or future version of the Mac OS. These older applications are not changing, so I am not looking for anything new from Rosetta--just keep it working.

I would prefer Apple to keep Rosetta as an optional installation with Lion, but I could live with keeping Snow Leopard + Rosetta running on a Parallels virtual machine. Progress is great, but sometimes there is still a need to be able to connect with the digital past to avoid the permanent loss of information.

My group develops cutting edge (server side) enterprise java applications. I could not do this nearly as efficiently without a Mac. I could not do this at all without Java on my Mac. My organization has a good dozen developers running $3,000 Macs because they are the perfect platform to for this high end enterprise development. 5 years ago, all those developers were running Solaris boxes. BECAUSE Apple's Java support has improved so much over the years, we were able to switch.

There are tens of thousands of companies like us.

Who cares???

I know where you're coming but you need not worry. Lion won't come pre-installed with java but you'll still be able to download it on your own. Apple hasn't abandoned java, they're just not maintaining it anymore, Oracle is.